{"id":153571,"date":"2025-11-22T10:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T10:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/153571\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T10:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T10:30:07","slug":"greek-secondary-school-teachers-to-be-trained-in-using-ai-in-classroom-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/153571\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek secondary school teachers to be trained in using AI in classroom | Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secondary school teachers in Greece<\/a> are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools as the country assumes a frontline role in incorporating AI into its education system.<\/p>\n

Next week, staff in 20 schools will be trained in a specialised version of ChatGPT, custom-made for academic institutions, under a new agreement between the centre-right government and OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to accept that AI does not exist in a parallel universe. It is here,\u201d the education minister, Sofia Zacharaki, said ahead of the pilot programme launch.<\/p>\n

The initiative, which is to be expanded nationally in January, makes Greece one of the first countries to pioneer the use of generative AI in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Workshops will initially focus on teachers mastering the new technology to assist lesson planning, research and personalised tuition, before ChatGPT Edu is gradually integrated into schools. Next spring, when older secondary school students are allowed to use the tool, access will be tightly monitored, officials say.<\/p>\n

Greece follows Estonia in its embrace of the technology. Prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis\u2019s pro-business government has ambitions for Greece to become a technological hub, with Athens hosting one of Europe\u2019s first AI factories.<\/p>\n

Although Mitsotakis has warned of \u201csignificant social unrest\u201d if the AI revolution is seen only to enrich tech companies, his administration is among the first to devise a national strategy to prepare Greeks \u201cfor the developments that all kinds of applications of this technology will bring\u201d.<\/p>\n

In schools where the majority of pupils already use apps such as ChatGPT, the government has been guided by the belief that \u201cif you can\u2019t beat the bot, befriend the bot.\u201d<\/p>\n

But among some Greeks the response has been less enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

Secondary school pupils, citing the pressures of an education system overly concentrated on exams, express fears of being \u201coutsmarted and controlled\u201d by AI if it is allowed to develop unrestricted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt terrifies me,\u201d said 17-year-old Aristidis Tolos, attending a demonstration in central Athens, held in part to protest against the direction of education reforms. \u201cThey\u2019re asking so much of us, and now this. AI doesn\u2019t have a soul, it\u2019s a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, says Greece\u2019s commitment to test-run the chatbot amounts to a \u201cnew educational chapter\u201d for the country. Under the deal, the US company has pledged to oversee that \u201cbest practices for safe, effective classroom use\u201d are applied.<\/p>\n

Sceptics are concerned that Greece is becoming a laboratory for a technology whose inherent risks include the erosion of critical and creative thinking.<\/p>\n

In the downtown offices of the federation of secondary school teachers, Olme, the prospect of its introduction has ignited consternation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt our recent congress it was the main issue of discussion, with many voicing disquiet,\u201d said top official Dimitris Aktypis, adding that there is concern about whether these changes could ultimately lead to \u201cteacherless\u201d classes.<\/p>\n

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Educators also worry the new technology will exacerbate screen addiction in a country that will soon become the first in Europe to block social media access for children under 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 40 years of teaching, I can honestly say that screens have destroyed children,\u201d said Dimitris Panayiotokopoulos, who retired as a primary school headteacher this year. \u201cAI is not a panacea. It poses a huge threat to critical thinking if kids are spoon-fed answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government, he said, should instead focus on improving facilities in a nation where the education sector is allotted less than 5% of the budget, despite demands for increases going back decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the winter you see kids shivering in classrooms because we are only allowed to put the heating on for a single hour,\u201d said Panayiotokopoulos. \u201cThey talk about the digital age, but often basic things like electricity and plugs don\u2019t work. It\u2019s an atrocious situation that needs to be urgently tackled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olme represents 85,000 teachers, most of them permanent staff, who speak of an ingrained culture in classrooms of rote-learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be technophobic. AI, after all, can help educators be more effective,\u201d said Panos Karagiorgos, a secondary school physics teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s problematic when AI is used in a system whose sole aim is to produce pupils who can pass exams. There\u2019s no interest in schools producing well-rounded kids, which in itself stifles creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physics teacher Panos Karagiorgos: \u2018We shouldn\u2019t be technophobic\u2019 but AI \u2018stifles creativity\u2019. Photograph: Helena Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Until now, AI has been exclusively used in private schools in Greece. Athens College, the alma mater of several Greek leaders, including Mitsotakis, was among the first to use AI to aid course design and instruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Greece should miss this passing train,\u201d said Alexis Phylactopoulos, chair of the school\u2019s board of directors, adding that he wholeheartedly supported AI\u2019s integration into the national curriculum if critical thinking and creativity was safeguarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no easy answers with AI. It has to be used as a tool in education and with a lot of guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secondary school teachers in Greece are set to go through an intensive course in using artificial intelligence tools…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-153571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}